


'cause we're the afterlife

by KiaraSayre



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftermath, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Copious amounts of alcohol - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, limericks make everything better, post-episode 83, this will be jossed in literally less than twenty-four hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-02
Updated: 2017-02-02
Packaged: 2018-09-21 12:37:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9549260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiaraSayre/pseuds/KiaraSayre
Summary: The most disconcerting thing about waking up is the fact thateveryone is crying.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this contains MAJOR SPOILERS for episode 83, "The Deceiver's Stand." It also relies on the fact that if Keyleth levels up, she should have access to True Resurrection, which Matt tweeted gets around the resurrection skill check rules.
> 
> I hope you find this as cathartic to read as I did to write, because _fuck_ I'm nervous. Is it Thursday yet?
> 
> Title from Ingrid Michaelson's "Afterlife."

The most disconcerting thing about waking up is the fact that _everyone is crying_. Keyleth, he could handle. Pike, he could handle. He could even handle Vax getting all weepy, with his documented tendency to get all morbid and overdramatic at the drop of a hat.

But Scanlan wakes up and it's not just Keyleth and Pike and Vax (although Keyleth's sobs of relief are not only audible, but hard enough to shake the table he's lying on). Wetness stains Vex's cheeks even as she smiles weakly at him, Percy has manfully-withheld tears glimmering in his eyes, and Grog - Grog, standing at Scanlan's feet - is weeping unashamedly.

"Uh," Scanlan says, and immediately becomes aware of how _close_ they all are to him, too. "Hi?"

Keyleth begins bawling in earnest, curling over Scanlan's head to cry into his hair. Vax, standing next to her, leans down as well and plants a long, firm kiss on Scanlan's forehead. Vex gives a gasp that might be laughter or just the release of a long-held breath, and her hand goes just to the side of Vax's face to ruffle Scanlan's hair, whacking Keyleth lightly in the process. Pike, he realizes, is holding his hand, squeezing it hard, and even Percy rests a hand of his own on Scanlan's knee. Grog is the only one not directly touching Scanlan, and as Scanlan watches, Grog turns around and takes two steps away from the - 

The table. He's on a table in the temple to Sarenrai in Whitestone.

Well, that's fucking bad.

But first things first. "I seem to have missed something," Scanlan says, his voice slightly muffled by Vax, who, upon ending the kiss, is now resting their foreheads together. "Did someone forget to tell me we were having an orgy?"

This gets laughter from the rest of Vox Machina, and while Pike squeezes his hand even tighter, Keyleth and Percy back off a bit.

Grog, though, turns back and slaps the table open-handed, hard enough that the noise makes everyone jump with surprise. He points at Scanlan. "No more dying, all right?" he says. "You see someone coming at you to kill you, you yell for me and I'll take the blow. Just - no more of this shit."

That's the piece that makes Scanlan put together just _how_ fucking bad things are, and he sits up abruptly, ducking around Vax's head so they don't collide. "I died?" he demands. " _Again_? Are you kidding me?"

"We're really not," Percy says in the quiet voice that he reserves for when he's being ultra-ironic or deadly serious.

"But you're back," Vex jumps in immediately. "And that's what's important. Oh! And Raishan's dead."

"I - well - good!" Scanlan says, his mind still struggling to catch up. He remembers - claws. And teeth. Killed by Raishan _again_. Motherfucker. "Well," he says, and looks down to where Pike still grips his hand. "Thank you for bringing me back, Pike."

Something passes across Pike's face, so foreign that it takes Scanlan a second to recognize it from the long moments between Grog's death and resurrection, the breathless heartbeats waiting to see if Percy's resurrection took: grief mixed with preemptive regret. "Actually, it - it was Keyleth."

"Oh," Scanlan says, and rearranges the mental image he had had of the resurrection: Keyleth's hand on the top of his head instead of Pike's entwined in his, and - "Wait, since when can you do that?"

Keyleth says, between shuddering breaths - Vax has his hand on her shoulder now, at least, maybe that'll help calm her down, good - "I wasn't powerful enough until - until we defeated Raishan."

Scanlan twists around to narrow his eyes at her - red blotches cover her cheeks and the skin from her eyebrows to her cheekbones puffs up enough to almost swell her eyes shut. A sick suspicion creeps along Scanlan's spine, and he looks at the rest of Vox Machina: the relief on their faces is so strong that it crowds out any joy, but it does nothing to hide the circles under their eyes, the bruises that have already begun to fade and the cuts already losing their scabs. "How long," he says slowly, "was I dead?"

"Too fucking long," Grog says immediately, the only one to meet Scanlan's eyes. He's also the only one who can't give Scanlan a damn number.

"A week," Vex says, clipped and matter-of-fact.

"A _week_?" Scanlan demands. "It took a _week_ to kill Raishan?"

"No, that part happened rather quickly," Percy says, and then tilts his head slightly in reconsideration. "Or so I'm told."

"You both died," Pike says, her hand leaving Scanlan's. "I managed to revivify Percy, but…the spell failed on you." She takes a deep breath, and meets Scanlan's eyes as she says, "Twice."

For once in his life, Scanlan can't find anything to say. He stares at Pike, trying to fit an entire week and two failed resurrections into the blank space in his mind that feels like nothing more than a medium-length nap. 

But the strict facts seem to bolster Keyleth, whose breath is almost normal again as she says, "I finally had a spell that could bring you back, but it needed a bigger diamond than we had. The week was what it took to get it."

This is not information that makes things make more sense. It does the opposite. Scanlan can see the individual pieces of it, but they're not coming together to fill in what now feels like a chasm in his mind, between when he was alive and when he was alive again. Or, rather, when he was alive again and when he was alive again _again_.

Vax stirs behind him and says, quietly, "Kaylie's here. She'll want to know you're awake."

"Kaylie…?" Scanlan says. Yet another puzzle piece that just _doesn't fucking fit_.

"She agreed to help with the…the second attempt," Vex explains, and Scanlan's mind downright grinds to a halt, pulled in a million directions at once: anger (they pulled his daughter in for a resurrection, and then _failed it_?), confusion (why the fuck was it so hard to find a diamond? Don't they have a million of those?), concern (they look so tired, they look _so tired_ and wrecked and why are they _all_ crying, it's still so disconcerting), and another dose of confusion for good measure.

"Okay," Scanlan says slowly. "I have some questions. All of them, in fact."

"Can we discuss them over a drink?" Percy says, his hand finally slipping from where it rested on Scanlan's knee. "Or, perhaps, ten? That's what we did over the last resurrection ritual, right? Or, well, you lot did."

"That's right!" Pike says, her head whipping around to look at Scanlan. "How are you feeling? Do you need healing?"

"I feel - fine, actually," Scanlan says, looking down at himself, and it's true. The first time, when Pike brought him back, he had felt the lingering cold on the surface of his skin, as though frost had accumulated there even though it was the remnants of his own body's temperature. This time, though, he doesn't see so much as a bruise and doesn't feel even the slightest ache. "Surprisingly fine?" he adds, remembering how completely Percy had been knocked on his ass after his resurrection. "Is that a bad sign?"

"I think it's the more powerful spell," Keyleth says, glancing at Pike for confirmation. 

But Pike just shrugs one shoulder, crunching it towards her ear in a clearly uncomfortable motion. "I wouldn't know," she says. "I'm not that powerful yet. I think it's because I stay behind - all of you keep getting better, while I just…stay here."

"Don't say that, Pike, you're plenty powerful," Scanlan says, but his planned effusive praise comes to a halt when he realizes he's the only one trying to comfort her. Vex, Vax, and Percy just plain aren't paying attention, gazes gone hollow with exhaustion, while Keyleth stares at Pike like her heart is mid-break and Grog's mouth twists in an unhappy line, tucked in at the sides. It's a strange look on him.

Vex finally rouses from her thoughts and says, "We should drink, then."

"Copiously," Vax agrees, still staring into the middle distance.

"I know which - which tavern Kaylie is probably at, if you want to…" Vex adds, glancing at Scanlan.

That provides Scanlan with the push he needs to pivot his legs off the table, scooting himself down to the far side of Pike, and get back on his own feet. "I absolutely want to see her! Is she all right? Was she upset? Did she - did she say anything about me?"

"She's fine, she's as upset as you'd expect, and telling you would be cheating," Percy says with just enough of an assholish drawl that it almost sounds normal. "Besides, she was drunk that time we tried it with her."

"That's my girl," says Scanlan. "Lead the way."

 

It's the same tavern they went to after Percy's resurrection, because of course it is. The silence rolls over them as they walk, dense as fog and just as bewildering - from all the stumbling and the wide, shellshocked gazes, Scanlan has the sneaking suspicion he's the best off of anyone in the group, and he can't stop thinking on a loop, _Kaylie's here, she knew I was dead, the dragons are gone, but Kaylie's here_.

He could ask someone if she found out quickly, at least, or if she didn't find out until later that she'd been living her life as though everything was normal while he was dead because she didn't know; if she spent any of the week between his death and resurrection wondering what other axes had fallen that she just hadn't had a chance to feel the blow from yet. Grass had already begun growing on his mother's grave by the time Scanlan returned home and got the news, and that, more than anything, was what he didn't want for Kaylie.

This, he realizes, will be his first drink back in a Tal'Dorei without the Chroma Conclave. All of the dragons are dead. Even Raishan, who killed him twice and once with startling efficacy, can become a distant memory, walled off and complete.

Kaylie's got a thief's seat in the tavern, in a corner where no one can take _her_ purse but she can survey each mark that comes through the door. Even before she looks up, Scanlan fills with pride.

"Oi," he calls before she can notice him, "Shorthalt!"

Her head whips around hard enough that her arm jostles into her tankard, and she stares at him unabashedly. Vox Machina files in behind him and he gives Kaylie a smile that he knows from extensive experience looks genuine.

"It's really him, darling, I promise," Vex says from behind Scanlan. "Although if you really want to test him, ask for a limerick."

"Don't ask for a limerick," Scanlan says immediately, "I don't have any suitable to tell my daughter and, besides, I got all the worst ones from Dr. Dranzel."

"Shitting fuck," Kaylie says, standing up and coming just close enough to poke Scanlan quickly in the clavicle. "You're back from the dead."

"Yes," Scanlan says, and gives her an abridged wave of his hand. "Surprise?"

She hiccups out a quick laugh. She's just good enough of a liar that Scanlan can't tell if it's the drink or genuine tears glazing her eyes, but she answers that question almost immediately: "You should've come back when I was sober."

"Uh-huh," Scanlan says, looking her up and down. She doesn't look to be in quite as bad shape as the rest of Vox Machina, but life with the troupe is a very different kind of life on the road, one which may just have taught her how to hide things better. "How long ago would that have been, exactly?"

"A few hours!" Kaylie says, and behind Scanlan, Vex audibly snorts her disbelief. Kaylie's expression curdles into a glower, but she amends, "…last Wednesday."

"Right. Well." Scanlan turns back to his friends and rubs his hands together. "You all look like you really, _really_ need to get shitfaced, and we drank without Percy after he came back…"

"Yeah, yeah," Vax says, and starts shooing the rest of the group to the other side of the tavern. Vex catches on and grabs Percy by the shoulders, steering him past as Vax says, "Catch up with your daughter. We'll be over here."

"Stay in sight," Grog says abruptly, glaring to show that he means it.

"I…will?" Scanlan says.

Keyleth pulls Scanlan into a quick hug on her way to follow Vax, and whispers down to Scanlan, "I'm really, _really_ glad you're back."

Scanlan tries to reach up to pat her on the head, but she's so unfairly tall that he only manages her lower ribcage. "So am I."

"I'm serious," Grog mumbles as he passes Scanlan. "Don't wander off."

"You got it, buddy," Scanlan replies, and points at him for good measure.

As she wanders by, Pike pauses for a second to nod at Kaylie with a tight smile. "Hi, Kaylie," she says.

"'Lo again," Kaylie says, and Pike continues on.

"So…do you mind if I join you?" Scanlan says after a second, and Kaylie shrugs noncommittally. 

"Don't see why not. I s'pose there's reason to celebrate, if nothing else. Your friends all seem keen to."

Scanlan glances over his shoulder to the bar as he follows Kaylie back to her table. Keyleth and Vax stand here with arms full of tankards, with one last tankard on the bar and nowhere to put it. He shakes his head, turning his attention back to Kaylie. "I swear, I die for a week and they all become completely unable to function."

Kaylie shoves herself into her seat and pushes her own tankard towards Scanlan. "You probably need this more than I do. And they - they missed you. It was obvious."

Scanlan puts up a smile, but pulls the mug towards himself. "I bet they did. I'm the one who can cast the mansion spell. They've been spoiled - probably got sick of camping already."

"That's not what I mean," Kaylie says, leaning in and suddenly intent. "You should've seen them - even when what's-her-name, the dark-haired one, when she came to Kymal to get me for the ritual, she looked like she'd been crying for ages but that you'd only been dead a few hours. And the things they said about you, to try to get you to come back - and the stories they told afterward…" Her expression goes soft but sad, half despairing and half jealous. "You - you've built yourself a life on them, and they built theirs on you, like…like…" She stares off for a second, trying to think of a metaphor. "There's got to be something about buildings that makes sense, but it's like you're all the harmonies to each other's melodies, yeah? No, not even that - you're all the notes of one long song. When they wanted you back and you didn't come…"

Scanlan had been so intent on listening that he'd neglected to do what he clearly should have done to prepare for this conversation: chugged as much alcohol as he possibly could. Now the moment isn't right, but he leans toward Kaylie. 

"Kaylie," he says intently, "I promise you. I don't know what happened in that ritual - I honestly don't remember any of it, which, as you can probably imagine, is _very frustrating_ \- but if it had been my choice, I would've chosen to come back right then and there."

She sighs at him. "I know," she says. "You think too much of yourself not to."

He breathes out a laugh to let the tension break, and pushes off the question he's desperate to ask for later.

"You know, I talked to Dr. Dranzel the other day," Kaylie says, idly scraping at a burnt spot on the wooden table in front of her with a nail. "He's thinking of retiring."

"He's _what_?"

"He's getting old. Half-orcs, you know. Not as long-lived as us gnomes. And it seems you told him to take a special interest in me, and - well. Zedd can't lie to save his life, Kent's so wrapped up in his 'artistic vision' - " Kaylie rolls her eyes and Scanlan laughs in earnest, because, yeah, that was his problem too in his years with Dr. Dranzel - "that he wouldn't know how to recognize a business deal if it slapped him in the face. Samson can do the thieving but not the music, and Esilmere wants to go off and do what you do. Be an adventurer and whatnot."

Wax, Scanlan realizes. There's a hardened spot of wax on the table, and Kaylie's methodically scraping it up with her nail, leaving yellow curls of it sitting there useless.

"So he asked me if I wanted to try my hand at leading it. 'Kaylie Shorthalt's Spectacular Traveling Troupe,' he said, 'cause two names sounds more impressive. Or that was his excuse."

"Kaylie…"

"I became a bard because of you, you know," she continues, meeting his eyes. "To find you. To best you. It seemed like a good idea at the time." She looks over at Vox Machina, and Scanlan can't help but follow her gaze. There's a distinct lack of carousing - for the first time that Scanlan can remember, they all seem to be quiet drunks, not quite desperate enough to be weepy but certainly lacking in anything resembling fun.

But Kaylie says, "You've got yourself a life, one that they're going to write songs about for _centuries_ , and I just copied it for a bit."

"Then," Scanlan says slowly, tearing his attention away from his friends, "I guess the question is…what do you _want_ to do?"

Kaylie barks out a short laugh. "I've spent a week trying to figure out that answer, and I haven't a fucking clue." She looks at him curiously. "What would you do?"

"I think, in this case, I'm the last person who can tell you what to do." Scanlan hesitates, and then adds, "but whatever it is that you choose, whether you're playing your flute in circles around me or if, hell, even if you decide to start a roc farm in the Cliffkeep Mountains, you'll always have my love and my support. Although," he adds, "rocs are pretty mean, so I wouldn't necessarily suggest that."

Kaylie stares at him, her eyes glimmering even more now, and she says, "They told me to say something. When we were trying to bring you back. Something to convince you to come back. And I said…I said, I only heard the bad stories about you. I want to hear the good ones, too. I spent so long planning how it could go when I met you, everything you might do, which weapons you might use to defend yourself - but I never stopped to consider you might be anything other than a piece of shit."

" _Well_ …" Scanlan says, wincing theatrically.

"I'm not done with you, Scanlan Shorthalt," Kaylie says suddenly, pointing at him. "You still owe me a long conversation, and this doesn't count. A long conversation while sober. I'm changing our deal."

"I accept the terms," Scanlan says immediately. "Do you…do you need some water or something? I'm assuming that 'hungover' doesn't count as 'sober.'"

"It doesn't," Kaylie confirms. "It's a good thing. That you're alive."

Scanlan opens his mouth for a witty retort, and absolutely nothing comes to mind. Kaylie keeps looking at him for a long moment, then nods once, decisively, and crosses her arms on the table.

"And you have to tell me about the cows," she says, already beginning to mumble as she puts her head on her arms. "That story can't have been right."

"Oh, of _course_ they'd tell you about the cows," Scanlan says, but he's well aware that it's mostly to himself. Kaylie snores. Loudly.

He sighs and slips his cloak off - well, not his cloak, but someone's cloak, and it's a bit disconcerting that he woke up wearing different clothes now that he's thinking about it, particularly since this dark green-gray looks suspiciously roguish - and covers Kaylie's shoulders. He'll get Grog to carry her back to Whitestone so he can put her to bed. Scanlan's slept on floors before, and besides, he really does feel fine.

He heads to the other side of the tavern to join Vox Machina.

He opens with, "So you told her about the cows."

"The cows?" Percy says, frowning.

"You skipped the cows, darling," Vex says, staring into her ale. "You were brooding."

"Oh, those cows," Percy says.

"We told stories about you," Keyleth says suddenly, glancing at Scanlan sidelong. "Because when - when Percy was down, you…we remembered that you wanted to tell stories about him, and it looked like we had time, so…"

"We told her the good ones," Vax says quietly. "Kingslayer."

"Burt Reynolds. Francois Australia," Vex adds, and for just a second a smile flickers across her face.

"The time you threw me at a Beholder," Grog says.

"We couldn't make you a pillow fort, though," Keyleth adds, one corner of her mouth tucking in with regret. "Sorry."

"That's…fine," Scanlan says, trying not to think about the fact that they're talking about his corpse. Him, when he was a corpse. Stories that they told in the past tense, about him, about a life that, at the time, seemed to have reached its end.

"How's Kaylie holding up?" Pike asks, after the conversation lulls into another exhausted silence.

"She's fine," Scanlan says before even thinking about it. "She's going to have a _very_ rough morning tomorrow, but it happens." The table, he decides, is in desperate need of some lifted spirits, and literally everyone else in the group is too easy a target for Scanlan to let it go. "She said you _missed_ me," he says, letting his voice go sing-song and mocking.

"We did," Vax says, voice clipped, and there go those lifted spirits.

It's not like their usual bar crawl, and it also bears no resemblance to the celebrations over Percy's return. The conversation continues in starts and stops, everyone more focused on finding the melancholy in their cups and Scanlan keeps finding them staring at him. Vax's lips keep moving when he thinks nobody is watching, and Scanlan thinks it might be a prayer. Vex's wide eyes jerk towards every wayward movement at the tavern, the pad of her thumb moving over the tips of her forefinger and middle finger as though they're itching for a bowstring. Percy's the worst, though, with his too-controlled expression and his cheery determination to make this a normal night out.

It strikes Scanlan then what the problem is. Everything they do telegraphs grief, or panic, or crisis, as though they've fallen into the habit of it and now that the Conclave is gone, they can't remember how to exist without it.

Then Keyleth gets the next round of drinks, and as she passes Scanlan a tankard her hand closes over his and squeezes - but the look in her eyes isn't comforting or happy, it's determined and slightly askew, like she's reminding herself that he's real.

That's when it hits him that it's not the Conclave - or at least, not _just_ the Conclave. It's him. They missed _him_ , they mourned _him_ , they went into crisis mode to Get Scanlan Shorthalt Back From The Dead and now they can't shake themselves out of it even though he's sitting right here.

He died, and stayed dead long enough to break them.

The thought comes out of nowhere: _gods_ , he loves these dumbasses. And apparently they love him back, and they're just as fucking clueless right now as he is, daughters and existential crises or not.

"You know," he says thoughtfully, "I think my death has given me a revelation."

"Oh?" Vax says, eyebrows raising. Pike has the forethought to look a bit nervous, and trades a quick glance with Vex.

"Yes," Scanlan says. "A new perspective from which to look at life and all its many mysteries and foibles."

Grog, who has been matching Pike shot for shot, repeats, "Furballs?"

"The world - the universe, the plane, whatever you want to call it - is beautiful," Scanlan says firmly. "And it's fleeting and sometimes it's terrible, so we should celebrate while we have it. With poetry."

"Really," Vex says, unconvinced.

"Yes," Scanlan says. "In fact, I think a poem may have come to me in the void of death."

"The Raven Queen gave you a poem?" Grog says.

"Yes, Grog, this poem is definitely from the Raven Queen," Scanlan agrees.

"Oh, this'll be filthy," Vex murmurs to herself.

Pike sits forward a bit and whispers back, " _Yeah_ it will be!"

Grog, Vex, and Pike. That's three of six; Keyleth, Vax, and Percy still seem distracted. Still, Scanlan likes those odds.

He clears his throat and says, " _There once was an earth elemental_ \- "

"Yep," says Vex, and whacks Vax gently on the arm. "Listen up, darling, this one's apparently from the Raven Queen."

"Consider it part of your paladin training," Scanlan informs Vax as he blinks. "You weren't paying attention at all, were you? I'll start again. _There once was an earth elemental_ \- "

"Wait, is this about me?" Keyleth says, frowning, and that gets Percy's attention too. Six out of six. Now to bring it home.

"Not as far as I know, since the poem implies it's always an earth elemental - but we can analyze it later," Scanlan says with a shrug. "Anyway: _Unfuckable, though not ungentle_ \- "

"Is the earth elemental going to fuck a mountain or something?" Vex asked.

Scanlan stops short, and tries to find a way to work it in, but it doesn't quiet scan. "So here's the thing, Vex," he says conversationally. "Originally the limerick was going to involve a fire giant and end on 'incremental,' but fucking a mountain is _way_ better."

"You know - " Keyleth begins, and then stops abruptly, looking down at herself pensively. "Huh." Then she looks back up. "Do I have boobs when I go elemental?"

Everyone looks at Scanlan.

"While I acknowledge that yes, I'm probably the teammate most likely to notice boobs even when they're made of rock," Scanlan says, inclining his head, "I feel like Keyleth only goes elemental when we're deep in the shit and I'm too distracted to notice."

"Should I go elemental now so we can check?"

Percy reaches across Vax to gently pat Keyleth's shoulder. "You're very drunk and you'd probably set the table on fire, so perhaps we'd best leave it until tomorrow." 

"And," Pike adds, "you just brought someone back from the dead. You earned a night off." Then she leans towards Keyleth and whispers conspiratorially behind a hand, "Trust me, you can milk this for a _long_ time if you play your cards right."

"Hey!" Percy says from across the table.

"I'm so proud of you," Grog tells Pike, and Pike beams at him.

A quick glance shows that, sure enough, the general depression seems to have faded at least a little bit - and that Kaylie is still sleeping peacefully at the other end of the tavern. Scanlan decides that things are probably about as light as they're going to get tonight, so he asks, "So Raishan's, like, _dead_ dead, right? Not somehow a lich or something?"

"Kerrek smashed her head open pretty good, so yeah, she's not a lich or something," Vax says.

"Then we set her and Thordak's corpses on fire," Vex adds.

Scanlan leans forward. "Okay then, tell me this, and it's very important: Did Kima finally manage to land a hit on a dragon?"

There's a moment of silence as the rest of the group digests this, and Vex begins to wince as she thinks.

"You know…" Vax begins, and then shakes his head.

" _Oh_ ," Grog says, nodding, " _that_ 's why she was so pissed."

"Okay. Good. I can rub that in the next time I see her," Scanlan says. "Now, did I miss anything else cool? Was Raishan really angry when Kerrek hit her, or - "

"Keyleth Feebleminded Raishan," Percy says.

Scanlan sits straight up. "You're shitting me."

"I definitely wasn't at the time, seeing as I was disemboweled," Percy replies.

Instead of a flinch or yet another awkward, morbid silence, this gets a groan and a gentle swat from Vex. "Only you, Percy, _only you_ would go around making terrible puns about disembowelment."

"But there's just so much material," Percy murmurs, and Vex's attempt at a quelling glance recedes under her smile.

"How long did it last?" Scanlan demands, and almost hopes nobody tells him. The pictures he's painting in his mind are almost too beautiful.

"Oh, she died like that," Pike says with a savage grin.

"It lasts at least thirty days unless someone removes it," Keyleth adds, with well-deserved smugness.

"Tell me _everything_ and leave no detail out," Scanlan demands.

As she tells the story - and as Vax jumps in, and then Percy with a clarification, and the Grog with sound effects and Pike with appreciative whoops and hollers and Vex bumping her shoulder against her brother's when he exaggerates - the color returns to her cheeks, and to the rest of the party's. Scanlan abruptly realizes that this must be how the rest of the party feels when he heals them - he tells them a story or sings them a song, and all of a sudden life returns.

There will be more to deal with, on the other side of the dawn - hangovers and career crises and the story of how they got a diamond big enough, to start. But for this moment, Scanlan has his whole family in one place, blood and otherwise, and he's content, for once, to listen.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi on tumblr](http://starsandatoms.tumblr.com)!


End file.
